Pom Wonderful: Pomegranate Kiwi Juice

It's nice to know that the good people at Pom like me enough to give me the inside track on the newest Pom flavors! Woohoo!

The first of the two flavors up is Pomegranate/Kiwi.

I love kiwi. But sadly, you next to never see things flavored or made with kiwi. I actually tried to make kiwi ice cream a few months ago...because doesn't that sound good? Yeah, that's just it. It sounded good, but in reality it was a really dumb thing to do. The kiwi actually curdled the cream and...well, the less said, the better. It was quite a traumatic experience.



Kiwi, of course, has a great taste that is best described as a strawberry/banana hybrid. And happily, that combo paired perfectly with the strong tartness of the pomegranate juice.

When you first sip the drink, what you notice the most is the sweetness. It's strong on the banana side...but at the same time, it's definitely not banana. It never gets so sweet that you think you're drinking something that was purposely made super-sweet -- like, say, Hawaiian Punch. (Actually, that's an unfair comparison, because Hawaiian Punch -- while delicious in its own right -- is not 100% juice, and is intended to be super sweet, but you get the idea.)

The pom flavor comes in at the end of the sip. Probably because of the sweetness of the kiwi, the pom doesn't seem as tart as it does on its own; nor as in some of the other flavors available (such as the Pom Blueberry or Pom Cherry). Normally, I would have been disappointed by that fact, because I happen to really like the strong flavor of pom -- but it just tastes so good along with the kiwi that I don't care.

Because this flavor is so mild, I think this would be a great flavor for first-time Pom drinkers or for kids.

Really, really good!




PURCHASED FROM:
Sample From Company

PomX Iced Coffee: Café au Lait

Café au Lait is one of my favorite hot coffee drinks.

It's truly perfect in its simplicity. The steamed milk sweetens the coffee just the right amount for me; no sugar or Splenda needed. Let's just say that the baristas at my local Starbucks have made me more than a few Mistos (Starbuckian for café au lait).



So naturally, I was intrigued by the PomX Café au Lait. Hell, iced coffee is always good too. And I really liked the last PomX that I tried (the chocolate).

So how was the PomX Café au Lait?

Just like its chocolate sibling, Café au Lait is made with Pom's own nutritional supplement, which is conveniently enough called PomX. This PomX is a polyphenol antioxidant that Pom has developed that has various high concentrations of things like flavonoids, tannins, ellagic acid. Don't you feel healthier just reading that? I should add that PomX iced coffee doesn't contain any pomegranates, so if you had any concerns about that...put them at ease.

The Café au Lait has a strong coffee scent to it. A great scent actually; roasty and sweet. It immediately reminded me of when I was a little kid, and I would steal sips out of the cups of who ever was dumb enough to leave an unguarded coffee cup around a hyper six-year-old.

The first sip is sort of sweet, milky, deep coffee taste. And the first sip is great. Notice I am emphasisizing the word "first." The problem here is that the great roasty, milky happiness-in-a-bottle taste wears off very quickly, and is followed by a far less sweet, almost burnt, where-the-hell-did-the-milk-go? taste. WHY?? Pom, this was so good, and then...

Now, I could see fan of seriously strong, unsweetened black coffee loving this. But it was just too strong for me.

If nothing else, the consistency is perfect. It's smooth, it's creamy. It's not too thin, not too thick.

Again, I just could not get over the strength of the aftertaste. It just reminded me of that little old lady who stands in line next to you at the bank. Sweet at first, and then you just want her to go away, possibly forever. But for strong coffee lovers, this could be the best bottled coffee ever.




PURCHASED FROM:
Sample From Company

Pomx Iced Coffee: Chocolate

I have yet to meet a Pom drink that I haven't liked. And I had been meaning to try the Pomx Iced Coffee forever and a day, but I just never got around to it. Well, now I have. And that has proven to be a beautiful thing.

Pomx Iced Coffee doesn't actually contain any pomegranates, nor does it taste like pom juice or tea, but it does contain PomX: a polyphenol antioxidant that Pom has developed that has various high concentrations of things like flavonoids, tannins, ellagic acid and love. Okay, I made the love part up. But I am sure the good people at Pom at least like you as a friend.

So, amazing health benefits, warm and fuzzy feelings and incredibly cute packaging aside...

Let's talk about what's important: the taste.



Looking at the drink in a glass, I have to admit it looks a lot more like Yoohoo than a bottled Frappucino. It's milky chocolate brown and has a thinner texture that is, again, closer to Yoohoo than to a dairy based drink. But the coffee does contain milk that is both nonfat and rBGH free.

The initial taste reminded me of homemade chocolate milk made with A LOT of chocolate syrup (as far as I am concerned you know you've made a good glass when there is a half inch of chocolate sludge on the bottom). The coffee (Arabica beans) definitely takes a back seat to the chocolate. You can taste it at its strongest point right when the chocolate notes die down. I'd go almost as far to say that if you didn't know it was supposed to be there, you might not notice it was supposed to be coffee. But I like the fact that there is no bitterness and at the same time it's not overly sweet. If you're looking for an iced coffee drink that has a really strong coffee flavor, this one may not be your first choice.

But you would be missing out, because the chocolate is really good.



PURCHASED FROM:
Sample From Company